


Areimanios

by NinaMadou



Series: A World Not Unlike Ours [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Action/Adventure, Addiction, Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Africa, Alternate Antiquity, Alternate Europe, Alternate History, Alternate Near East, Alternate Persia, Alternate Reality, Alternate Rome, Alternate Syria, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Ancient world, Antiquity-Inspired, Army, Art, Backstory, Beauty - Freeform, Blood and Gore, Character Background, Character Death, Character Study, Character of many names, Colonies, Damaged Character, Death, Diverse Characters, Dubious Morality, Exploration, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Gladiatorial Games, Historical Fantasy, Historical Metaphors, Historical References, History - Serial Numbers Filed Off, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mentors, Mercenaries, Mercenary Army, Morally Ambiguous Character, Navy, Nina Madou writes, Noble Demon, Non-Regular Updates, Non-Sexual Slavery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Past Underage, Philosophy, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prequel, Prostitution, Rape/Non-con Elements, Relationship(s), Romance, Self-Destruction, Self-Worth Issues, Serious Injuries, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Tags are gonna be updated, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Tragedy, Tragic Romance, Travels, Violence, War, Worldbuilding, mercenary, ships, trade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23576182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinaMadou/pseuds/NinaMadou
Summary: Having been taught to fight from his most tender age, he knows well how to cling to life, but not how to live it.Life and chance make of him a mercenary, a gladiator, a soldier, a drunk, a thief. They move him thought seas and deserts and the brightest cities of his age, proud Kadassa, superb Romelia, ancient Urat and and heroic Hellike, they chain him to slave ships, trap him in battlefields, grant him entrance to temples and palaces, throw in his way and his bed women and men who save him, hunt him and sometimes leave in him parts of themselves. And all the while they rush him towards the great empire to the East, where in a marble room with running waters he will meet his fate, and his story will show at long last its true meaning.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character & Original Male Character, Original Male Character(s) & Original Male Character(s), Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: A World Not Unlike Ours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697065
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5





	1. For the Sands

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is in essence a prequel to a much larger story that is still in the works, and requires some large-scale worldbuilding, since we're talking about aan alternate universe heavily inspired by Mediterranean Antiquity and Medieval Middle East. The protagonist here is one of this story's seminal characters, and has a rather rich backstory which in the main story is only implicitly touched upon. So, this is mainly a character and worldbuilding study, in order to flesh things out, chronicling his many adventures, trials and tribulations through a vast landscape of fantastical lands and cultures, and the characters he meets and interacts with, until the point in which his role in the main story starts. It will not necessarily be regurlarly updated and I am not sure how many chapters there will be. 
> 
> WARNING: This story will contain explicit physical and sexual violence, and sexual situations. The tags will be appropriately renewed, and the rating updated. Proceed with caution.
> 
> Feedback is very much appreciated, since I see this as a kind of exercise in writing. Please, leave a comment telling me what you did and didn't like!

Like a womb, the lower hold is hot, and it is dark.

And like a womb it will soon spit them out of its depths into a new life, harder and crueler than their old one. That alone is saying a lot.

That is, if they don't die in there first, in the humid dark stinking of shit, wax, piss, blood, resin. And fear, above all. Cloying and sickening, the smell of muted, despairing fear soaks into the boards, sticks on the skin and makes the eyes burn.

Around and below them is the infinite ocean, with only a wooden hull to separate them from its crushing weight and the abyss of drowning. Above them, in the upper hold, amidst loud thumps and harsh groans, the heavy musk of the rowers' sweat and the heat of their straining bodies drift down through the planks and make the already thick air even more oppressive, causing the eyes trouble to stay open, forcing labored breaths to be drawn through the mouth. They are hired men, the rowers, not slaves. But little does that matter in the open sea. The wooden boards shiver with the relentless beat of the drum and, from time to time, a savage voice precedes the metallic hiss of the lash, accompanied almost always by a scream of pain.

But they will be free when they reach port. Free to spend their hard-earned coin on whores and drink, free to find different work or return to the sea, to the lash and the drum. The captives in the lower hold, pale and filthy, men and women with lowered heads and feverish eyes, their gaze dull with the animal resignation of despair, will have no such choice. Other slave traders await them a week's journey away, to barter them for gold and copper and lead them to the mines and the fields and the knidian houses. Freedom becomes more distant with every swoosh of the oars slashing the waves, the homes they were torn from already more distant still, distant as the sky and as hope. Some yet will perish on the journey, in this fetid humid darkness, and will be thrown overboard to feed the flesh-eating fish that always trail behind the Kadassan galley as she proudly cleaves the waves in her return to the gleaming city and her slave markets.

Reeman lies on his side behind a heavy chest at the back of the hold, away from the other captives. He has not raised his head once in three days. He hardly even opens his eyes anymore. Heavy chains bind him to the wood of the chest, to a beam in the ceiling, to a post on his left. Three, four times coiled around him, the iron so heavy it barely even clinks with the faint movements he can manage. They fear him. And it's as well that they do. They saw what he did to the soldier who tried to chain him first. They saw what he did to the slaver who attempted to examine his body. They heard what he did that caused his old comrades to sell him as chattel.

He is not sure if he is alive or dead anymore, and frankly he cares little. He feels hot, his whole body burns all over, yet shivers jolt him making his teeth chatter and his bones rattle, and frozen knives seem to cut into his back at the slightest movement, at the tiniest waft of salty air that manages to drift into the hold. Sometimes it seems as if even the change in the light, that imperceptible lessening of darkness that in the ship's depths heralds the beginning of a new morrow, is enough to rake his damaged skin with pains even a lifetime of injury and hardship have scarcely prepared him for. He dreams though, or he remembers; he is too lucid for the first and too dead to the world for the second. Most of the time he barely even has a sense of self; he knows Reeman is lying in his own filth under a pile of chains in a dark brig, yet he does not understand what this Reeman has to do with him. He sometimes dreams or remembers Belus though, and then he knows why he is there and what he has done, what Reeman has done. He closes his eyes tight to keep the images of that last hellish night from appearing, but they are always there, playing again and again on the inside of his eyelids.

_"There you are, my boy, come and join us. Look, I got the little one for you. They're brother and sister, or maybe they're not, I don't give a rat's shit. Come on. Do it to him. Do it to like I taught you."_

He is so very,very tired. His head buzzes, and his mouth is dry as the desert. He closes his eyes but there in no relief. He wants to lose consciousness. He wants to sleep. He wants to die. _"You don't do it you insolent little shit,I'll come up there and fuck him myself. And then I'll fuck you too with his blood on my cock, and I'll make sure you don't enjoy it one bit."_

Stop it, he whispers through cracked lips. Stop it. I want to sleep. _"_

_"Or maybe I'll fuck you with something better suited to a whore who fails to do as told. What say you, dog? Your cock in the runt's ass or my blade in yours?"._

_If you just shut you mouth, I will be able to sleep._

His temples are drumming, the flow of his fevered blood deafening. Sleep evades him. The pain doesn't ever stop now, not even for a moment. Not even to let him catch his breath. He will die here. Good.

Somewhere above him, above the hold of the rowers, a voice cuts suddenly the air with the shrill notes of terror. 

Shouts erupt on the deck. Thumps of feet rushing up and across, metallic clangs of weapons hastily distributed, commands yelled from one side of the ship to the other are almost immediately drowned under the drum, now beating an insistent, harsh rhytmh, twice the speed of a man's heartbeat, the hiss of the lash and the screams that follow a constant accompaniment in a chorus of panic. A silhouette appears at the porthole to the captives' hold, barks something indistinct over the din, and disappears again.

Down at the hold, the captives shuffle together. Someone starts praying to his gods. Two women hug each other with shackled arms. An older man starts crying. There is no rejoicing, no hopeful gazes, no wishing for freedom on their long unwatered lips.They can guess what is going to happen. And they know well their fate is one that can only get worse.

The Kadassan slave galley is a good, sturdy ship, but it is a ship made for trade, heavy and indolent like a well-fed woman. Its sailors are no warriors, and the few armed men on board at better with the whip than with the blade. Whatever is out there is stronger, faster, better armed. Lethal. And if it's hunting them, sooner rather than later, it's gonna catch them.

Suddenly, above the noise, the shouts, the drum, a total silence falls. It lasts less than a blink of the eye, but every soul onboard feels it in their marrow, and it is a terrifying thing.

And then, with a loud crack like old bones being shattered, the right part of the ship caves in, taking half the rowers of that side and half the floor of the upper hold with it, spraying the captives below with salt water, blood and splinters of wood and bone. Amidst the cries of the wounded and the dying, a coppery glint wedges itself in the galley's bowels like the ravishing phallus of Kymachos, the god of storms and sea battles; a gigantic lance held in the hand of a proud gorgon with bronze hair and steel breasts. The prow ram of a Romelian dromon, the fear and awe of the Limnaean Sea.

From there, the galley's fate is certain. Wild stomping thunders though the gutted ship, angry shouts that soon turned to screams of pain and pleads for mercy, accompanied by clangor of steel on steel, on iron, on wood, on flesh.To Reeman's ears, the sounds of the struggle on the deck sound like a thousand smiths hammering away at a thousand anvils inside his skull. It cancels out all other pain, the flayed back, the crushed ribs, the torturous visions. He does what he has always done; weathers it gritting his teeth for lack of any other choice. And like always he weathers it well. It has been his blessing, though it most often feels like a curse.

It is over quickly. The terrible noise subsides to orders given in a curt, well-ordered language, much different than the toothy Kadassan pidgin of the slave merchants, and almost immediately heavy footfalls are heard descending into the holds. Through the crushed boards, silhouettes in bright armor and colourful cloaks can be glimpsed moving among the rowers, plundering everything useful and finishing the wounded while chaining up the strong and healthy. Other silhouettes appear suddenly at the porthole to the brig, and cries of satisfaction make it clear to the captives that they are now property of the Romelian navy. The last great conflict between Kadassa and Romelia ended thirty years ago, but the two states keep vying both for naval superiority in the Limnaean, and thus remain in a constant state of undeclared war. The soldiers and crew of the dromon will be officially reprimanded and unofficially lauded when they reach the next Romelian port. The captives will then be sold and, after the local Agetor and Militor get their share, the coin won will be added to the wages of the dromon's men.

In these waters, things like that are hardly uncommon.

But right now time is of critical importance. The two ships are still locked in fatal embrace, and from the wound the dromon's ram has opened in the galley's side the waves roar. The sea in the lower holds slowly rises to ankle'a height and keeps rising. The weight of the water starts to slowly pull the galley down, the dromon still buried in her like an insatiable lover. Another few soldiers rush down and speak urgently to what appears to be the leader of the small group that examines the captives, checking who has enough life in them to be worth something in the markets. The leader, tall and fair, his gilded armor gleaming in the half light and his deep blue cloak bearing the golden tress of a Centor, nods severely and signals his men to hurry. Most captives are quickly slain; some are judged too weak and sickly to withstand the rest of the journey; others have been wounded or half-crushed beneath the debris of the impact. The man who was praying has gotten a sharp splinter lodged in his throat and another in his eye. He whimpers pitifully, drowning in his own blood with his eye's humours running down his face like tears. All in all, about twelve men and women are to be taken to the Romelian vessel. The others get a slashed throat and are left to go down with the galley, and thus their suffering ends. They all know they are the lucky ones.

The Centor strides last where Reeman lies unmoving and barely conscious, looks down at him and his thin lips press into a line. He draws his short sword, but cannot seem to find any vital part to strike under the heavy chains he is wrapped in. The other men shout at him, presumably to leave him like that and flee, but the Centor snaps back an order and bends to move the chains from Reeman's prone body. Reeman understands enough to know he is about to die. He feels exhilaration flood him, lets a soft moan in anticipation of the nothingness that will make the pain and the memories stop forever, that will let him sleep.

Only it is not meant to be. A cry from the chained captives that are being moved out of the hold stops the Centor's hand. An old man, the one who was weeping during the attack, cries out again in broken Cramyan, the state language of Romelia, and falls begging to the feet of one of the soldiers. The Romelian kicks him, sending him crashing back.

"He's saying not to move his chains, to leave him like this and go," another soldier tells the Centor. Reeman knows a smattering of Cramyan, and the brusque interruption of his death has brought back his lucidity and some small measure of strength in his limbs along with the instinct to fight, beaten and welded into him, ruling tyranically his body against the command of even his own mind. "He's saying that we are all going to die if we get near him, that he is a lemour that eats human flesh."

"Who, him?" The Centor's voice is sharp with impatience, but the old man starts blabbering again, and this time another captive, more put-together than the others speaks too, clearly and urgently.

"Heed the dust beneath your boots, this lowly slave you saved, and don't touch this man, glorious Centor. Let this dog die as he lived. His comrades, godless mercenaries the lot of them, sold him to us themselves claiming he butchered one of their own so savagely his carcass was barely even recognizable as a man. The guard who first put chains on him, he tore his throat with his teeth, I saw him spitting out chunks of flesh while the blood of the dead man showered him crimson. The merchant who tried to check him for flaws he kicked so hard his innards shattered, and he died two days later. I was his personal slave, and I tended to him as I know something of remedies, but I couldn't save him, and so his fellows gave me to be sold. The ship's captain ordered him flogged as soon as he stepped on the galley and they mangled his back and still, half dead, he tried to fight!"

The other slaves frenziedly nod their assent and the Centor's thin lip curls in disbelief even as his eyes narrow. He turns again to Reeman and, kneeling, decisively uncoils and removes the heavy loops of the chains. He orders two of his men to raise him by the armpits and, grabbing his mane, matted with filth and blood, pulls his head back to look at his face. Reeman's gaze, icily blue, meets his head on.

The Centor holds that gaze for an infinite moment. Only he could ever tell what he sees in there, but he instictively takes half a step back, and lets Reeman's mangy head fall again on his breast. A loud crack and a fresh spray of seawater forces him to make haste. He orders the captives led to the dromon, Reeman dragged along with them. But first, he sheathes his sword and brings it down hard on Reeman's temple in one clean, precise strike. And as his body falls boneless in the Romelians' hands and new aching darkness snuffs the world out of his eyes, Reeman hears the Centor saying : "This one is for the sands."


	2. Medra Maxilia

It is dark again. Must be long before dawn, for it is quiet as the camp rarely gets, even deep into the night. 

  
A hand, calloused and rough, falls on his flank, moves the cloth that covers it and trails down to his thigh. Belus must have returned; drunk, most likely. His touch is for once business-like, not violent nor injuring. He must be in good spirits, and through his sleep Reeman shivers involuntarily with that familiar mix of desire and trepidation, as he feels something wet on his lower back.

  
And then he remembers, the tear-streaked face of the young girl, the terrified teary eyes eyes of the naked boy, his dagger sinking hilt-deep in flesh, tearing sickly through muscle and sinew, hitting bone, Belus' eyes boring into his in rage, in despair, pain, madness, finally rolling inside his skull, his sharp teeth relaxing on the hand gripping his mouth shut _\- his own hand -_ blood bubbling up from the ruined throat, blood flooding the upturned eyes, and he knuckle-deep in blood, elbow-deep in blood, lips-deep in blood _\- tasting him, not for the first time, but now tasting only death -_ the dagger slipping from the bloodied hands, his fingers now tearing themselves into the prone body beneath him -is he even still alive- tearing and digging through the wounds _\- a strangled whimper, fuck the gods, he lives still -_ and gutting and slashing _\- shut up shut up shut up shut up let me sleep let me close my eyes stop just stop for one night stop stop stop-_ and is he crying, he feels wetness in his face, but it may have been the blood, and Belus is not making a sound anymore, the only sound is the wet, repulsive squelch of his hands inside the gored body _\- they have been inside each other countless times, but never like this, never like this -_ and he feels sick, he feels exhausted, in a corner, tightly embraced, the two children are looking with huge glassy eyes in their bloodless frozen faces at him puking his guts out - _ale and bile and blood -_ and his temples are pounding, and he can't keep his eyes open, and _if Belus is dead with his insides lying bruised and open to rot, if he is dead by his own hands, then where is he, and why is the pain in his head still there, and whose hand in now on him, splayed indifferently upon his burning shoulders...._

  
He opens his eyes so suddenly the blood thunders inside his head, and for a moment he only sees flashing darkness inside darkness, yet already his fingers are clenched around the wrist of the foreign hand, and he is ready to drag whoever it is down where he can better tear at him. But he is weak, his arms as water, and the act earns him only a cuff on the nape of the neck and a barked, "Stay still, dog!". The strike makes a wave of nausea wash over him, his mouth flooding with bile as he senses that he is rocking slightly, as if he is at sea, and he remembers that of course, he is at the galley, no, not the galley, the dromon of the Romelians, he now remembers the severe, handsome face of the young Centor as if seen in a dream, his cold gaze holding his own, appraising the worth of his life. Worth still something, it seems, for it looks like he is laid on a rag pile in a corner of the dromon's spacious storage hold, away from the other captives chained at the far side, and a Romelian, a crew medic by the looks of it, is cleaning and applying fresh compresses, soaked in something herbal and spicy-smelling, on his scourged back. He sighs silently and swallows back the bile. The poultice feels cool and soothing on his inflamed wounds.

  
"Where we head?" he manages, struggling to gather his thoughts. His Cramyan is conversational but long unused, and he lacks the accent of the mainland. Still, he is understood, for the sailor deigns to reply "Medra Maxilia" before bringing a cup to his lips. Reeman thirsts as if the winds of the desert blow down his throat, so he greedily gulps the liquid down, watered wine and something else, something too strong for his empty stomach, and this time he cannot hold back the bile that spills out of his mouth, all over the sailor's hand.

  
"By Martor's cock, you thrice-buggered pig, watch yourself!" blasphemes the sailor, cuffing him twice more and wiping his hand on the rags he's lying on. " You ain't supposed to chug down the garlic wine like it's lemon syrup!"

  
Oh, thinks Reeman, closing his eyes tiredly again. Garlic. 

  
"Callia's tits, I dunno why we don't just throw you off to feed the wolf-fish. I'm wasting my precious bear-grape and althaea trying to close up this massacred piece of beef that is your back. I'm almost all out yarrow, changing your stuff twice a day three days now," continues animatedly the Romelian, pouring a new cup of the drink and twisting roughly his fingers on Reeman's still matted hair to keep his head steady while letting it flow drop by drop down his throat. He then, with a grimace that seems to rue his magnanimity, fills anew the cup with clear water, which Reeman could swear gives him back more strength than all the bear-grape in the world.

  
" You, save me...why?" he tries again now his throat is not burning with thirst, recalling with something αkin to nostalgia that dreamlike moment when nothing separated him from his death at the tip of the Centor's sword. 

  
"Who knows, you scabby cur, who knows. If I were to decide, your rotting carcass would be hanging from the tall mast to scare off the seagulls. We learned all about your feats, worry not. They, " and he points to the miserable silhouettes bundled together on the opposite side of the hold, "are scared to death of coming near you. They are of the opinion we should have let you go down with the Kadassan tub, but the Centor thinks we will get good money out of you in the markets. Sell you for the sands, imagine that!" The man snickers, but then his face gets serious, and he leans down to look Reeman in the eye. "Say, is it true you bit a man's throat open?" His eyes gleam with morbid curiosity, and Reeman can think of no reason to lie. He nods, and the Romelian's jaw nearly falls open. 

  
"Callia's sweet cunt...how'd you do that?" Silly question really. Reeman almost doesn't answer but, well, things can hardly get any worse right now, and these people demonstrably care enough to at least keep him alive. And since there don't appear to be any other diversions on the horizon for quite some time ... He moves his head as close to the Romelian's as his pains allow.

  
"Had my hands tied back...he leaned in to put me chains...and I bit like that!", and he makes to flounce playfully, clanking his teeth shut just a hair's breadth away from the medic's throat and sending him squealing five steps back. He manages a chuckle, before three more cuffs fall with nauseating strength on the back of his head, while the Romelian curses a string that would make even the most seasoned whoremaster blush like a virgin. Some muted laughs echo from the hold's far side even.

  
"Leprous shit-eating mutt! You're lucky the Centor ordered me to treat you, or I'd tie you with hemp and have you dragged behind the ship! Play your buggered games now, for before long some gladiator will sharpen his blade on your useless bones!" He gathers his herbs and towels and starts for the deck, but then he turns and spits malevolently behind his shoulder:

  
"Do try to get a good price though, or I'll have wasted my yarrow on your broken up carrion. And if I have, I'll find your corpse in the arena just to piss on it."

  
Reeman listens to his footsteps getting away, and he tentatively flexes the muscles of his back. It still hurts, but less so than before. Whatever they're doing to him, it's good. He feels his stomach rumble, put pays it no mind; the thought of food, like every thought, like fear or regret, if it ever comes, can wait. Instead, he rests his now feverless head on his hands, and closes his eyes. So, he is a slave now, a thing to be sold for profit. He wonders idly why it does not bother him all that much. Being a slave means he commands no respect, he rules not his body, he decides not where to go or what to do. Nothing of these is new to him. Only his helplessness troubles him, the nakedness of being without his steel. And this too will pass. It must pass. He will make sure of it.  


  
The Centor's impenetrable gaze returns to his mind. The Romelian mentioned the sands. Good. That means he gets to fight again.

  
  
By the time they reach Medra Maxilia, he can stand once more.

  
The soldiers and the crew are happy; their good humour can be felt even down at the hold. They walk more animatedly and do their work with less grumbling and complaining, they laugh and chat about wives, children, warm food, baths and brothels; even the rowers manage a little talk among them, yet oddly the lashes are fewer and farther between. But the drum beats steadily, bearing them to port, to firm land, to rest, with barely reined-in impatience.

  
Reeman wonders if the blond Centor is impatient too. He wishes he had come down to see him even once. His eyes have nothing interesting to rest upon in the half-light of the hold, all dark shapes and unvarnished wood. And so, left idle, his mind torments him. He must continuously fight to stamp out the uncertainty, the pressing questions, the images of the young boy's horrified face as they dragged him away, cursing and beating him, the morning after the murder. Of the murder he dares not think, a dark opaque lake in his mind's center that he draws away from as soon as he ventures near its shores. It does no good to think about these things. He will have time to someday, when he figures a way out of the Romelians' hands. If he ever does.

  
The fair Centor would give him something beautiful to contemplate. He hopes to catch a glimpse of him once they disembark.

  
They reach port just after dawn, and it's way past noon when the captives are unloaded. Reeman lets them tie his hands just loosely enough behind his back with iron, though all the other captives' hands at tied with rope at their front. They place a chainlet on his ankles that makes it hard to walk, impossible to run. He pays no mind; keeps his eyes on the city sprawling before him; the fortified semicircular harbor full of boats and ships of every shape and nation, the wharves almost sinking with all manners of goods and people, the narrow streets behind the quay with their houses of commerce, of wine and of love, built with wood, mud-brick or marble, the innumerable animals and people moving about and pouring into one of the three huge, paved, statue-lined avenues that lead to the city's center, teeming with great temples surrounded by elaborate colonnades, gardens and fountains, with palaces and halls adorned with painted gables and friezes, piazzas lined with trees, sandstone theatres and arenas and baths and libraries, and, finally, a colossal yellow-golden shape at the feet of the sacred Mediyar hill, the huge Hippodrome of Medra Maxilia, famed in the whole of Meridia Romeliana, where horses and men and wild beasts paint the sands red with their blood on holy days and victory celebrations. 

  
Romelia wins many victories, and worships many gods.

  
Reeman fixes his gaze on that structure, elephantine yet oddly elegant, wondering matter-of-factly if is he gazing at the place of his death.

  
The Centor has left; he must visit the harbormasters first, to get leave to unload the captives and leave them for safekeeping; the dromon has to be moored in her lot in the warfleet harbor, quite a distance from the city. He returns soon, issuing commands. The captives are led into a dinghy and rowed to the docks, where under a shed they are summarily examined by two clerks, while, sitting behind a desk, another writes down swiftly everything pertaining to them. Reeman observes mesmerized the speed of his pen, sliding effortlessly over parchment and filling it with illegible sequences like the prints of birds on sand, while the clerks hang on their neck wooden tablets with numbers and names. Maybe the Centor's name is written there too, but Reeman can't read Cramyan. As they are led into the slave barracks, he gazes back at the dromon that, having raised anchor, is now heading to the exit of the harbor. It's the first time he gets a good look at it, the hull painted like a grinning face, the tall masts, the proud keel shining bronze and the lethal ram held in the steel hand of the gorgon. And, for the first time, he sees the name of the fatal vessel, etched blue and gold on the ship's side. He can't read, but he manages to spell.

  
M-A-P...no, R-M-O. Marmo.

Dusk is already falling, and the working day is nearing its end. One by one, the clerks' sheds empty, the doors of the marble mansions and bureaus close, and those of the pothouses and the houses of Knido open. A new kind of people floods the quay and the alleys, or maybe they are the same people as before, but the smoky light from the torches and the oil lamps and their difference in gait make them appear new.

  
Reeman watches everything from a shack in the barracks. The other captives are sleeping huddled together or have withdrawn in corners, somberly staring into nothing, too exhausted from their despair and the day's tribulations. But he, he's peering through the planks at the world passing by outside, drinking in the impressions, letting them fall heavy inside him without stirring his thoughts, as if he can get drunk on colors, faces, sounds like he gets drunk on ale, as if he can clog with them that dark lake of his mind that waits for him to fall inside, back into the memories, back inside his self.

  
Three women, dressed in sheer chitons and garish cloaks, their faces painted white and gold and purple, stroll hand in hand by the slave barracks.

  
He follows them with his gaze, tracing the outlines of their bodies, the lush waves of their tresses. It's been a long time since he's held the softness of a woman in his arms. He avoids dwelling on why that is.

  
An evening breeze takes one of the women's scarves, raises it in the air and throws it before the wooden shack. Reeman imagines he can breathe for a moment a hint of perfume, heavy but flowery, and an idea of warm skin.

  
The woman rushes to get it. As she bends to retrieve it, she comes face to face with Reeman, behind the loose planks of the shack's wall. She can't see him, can't know he's there. She's young, younger than he thought she'd be, but not so very young anymore. That close, her face is tired and drawn under the powder and paint, and not really pretty. She has big brown eyes, rimmed with kohl. Those eyes unknowingly meet his for a fraction of a moment, as she's getting up. They are wet and shimmering in the half-light, and make Reeman think he would like to lie with her, breathe deeply her smell and watch her eyes changing hues, her tired face open, unguarded, unpainted.

  
Her friends call her, cackling, and she gathers her scarf and shoots back a vulgar-sounding reply accompanied an unmistakably vulgar gesture. They all laugh together with hoarse, night-drunk voices and carry on with their stroll, held by each other's shoulders, swaying their hips, sashaying like boats in wild seas.

  
Reeman rests his forehead on the planks and breathes the salt night air. He wishes his hands were untied. He brings the brown-eyed woman in his mind, and the Centor, and his glimpses of Medra Maxilia, and like that he falls into light, uneasy sleep.

Early the next morning the captives are roughly woken up. They are given two meager grain biscuits each, and then water is brought, and clean clothes, and even a tray of stale powders and rouges. Four dock slaves help them clean the worst of the grime from their faces and arms, distribute new clothes, for their dress is by now reduced to barely scraps of matted cloth hanging from their bodies, even rouge the faces of those worse for wear to give them an appearance of health and vigor. Reeman observes coolly a heavyset matronly slave dusting generously the breasts of one of the three captive women among them, the youngest one, still long past girlhood. Another slave, a dusky young man of Eastern countenance, finishes unknotting one man's long hair and beard, and moves to him. He throws him a look of equal parts incredulity and scorn.

  
"I can't work with that", he complains to the matronly slave, who seems to be in charge. "His back is torn to ribbons, his hair's a bird's nest and he can barely stand. There's not enough powder in all of Port City to fix his face."

  
The woman snaps at him something unkind, and the youth snorts and starts making somewhat less than honest efforts to comb through Reeman's coal-black locks. The pain from that alone would have made any grown man burst out crying like a boy with a skinned knee, but Reeman makes not a sound, offers not the least resistance. Pain holds few secrets for him. Pain he has been taught to make a friend of, ever since those nebulous days of his early boyhood. And Belus has taught him diligently everything he had not yet had chance to learn.

  
He must stop himself thinking about Belus again. Instead, he concentrates on the pain that alternately burns and freezes his skull, skin to nerves.

  
The young slave finally abandons the task after limited success. He seems curious, almost offended that Reeman has offered no reaction to his ministrations. He pulls his head back and gazes at his face, only to jump up startled, and make a gesture to ward off evil.

  
"What demon gave you those eyes?", he asks astonished, fear creeping into his voice, a worn but fresh chlamys now hanging from his loose fingers, as if he has forgotten he holds it.

  
My father, Reeman could answer, but he is not sure, not really. He has never known his father, after all. It could be his mother for all he knows. He doesn't remember her either. So he stays silent, as he usually does. It's not like the boy expects an honest answer anyway. 

In the great paved court of the Militorium, the midday sun hits vertically the white marble and pale sandstone, blinding the eyes and spreading a suffocating heat that makes breathing hard and causes the sweat to run in rivulets down the captives' bodies. It is the hour most work pauses for a while, to be resumed again when the heats subsides. Everyone who can in the Militorium has left the open to seek refuge in the porches and the peristyle, and only a newly-arrived group of relegated youths are being coached in the yard nearby.

  
Reeman feels his fingers itch as he watches them spar, steel blades shining like cool water in the heat. It's the first time in his life he has spent so long without a weapon in his hand, without putting his hands on another in the thrill of fight, real or pretended. His whole body shivers with unspent energy when he realizes there are swords, lances, daggers everywhere around him; on the soldiers from the ship guarding them, the men training, the guards at the gates. He bites the inside of his mouth. The wait, already long, suddenly feels longer.

  
Captives and soldiers have been waiting for hours now the pleasure of the Militor. And not only them; the blond Centor is here too, standing immobile as a statue in perfect military posture, betraying no sign the heat or the sun bothers him. He's wearing his gilded helmet, crowned with long blue plumes, his heavy deep blue cloak with the golden tress, and his polished gilt bronze and leather armor. His arms and legs are naked, strong, bronzed from the sun and formed perfectly as the statues' that line the courtyard's entrances. Reeman has been stealing glances all through the wait, trying to divert himself from the phantom pain in his palms, where he can feel the absence of a dagger's hilt like a lost limb. He's standing quite close, so close he can see the only movement that marrs the stillness of the Centor's form; an almost unnoticeable, involuntary spasm at the corner of his lips, that fleetingly betrays impatience, maybe even ire, as does a tiny vein pulsing rhythmically in his temple. Reeman notes all of it mechanically, trying to make out the Centor's severe profile under the shadow of the helmet. He notes the straight nose, thin lips, strong meaty chin. His golden curls, that return some of the youthfulness to that stern face. Reeman thinks he would like to run his fingers through those curls. He has rarely seen hair so golden. He wonders how they would shine if the Centor removed his helmet in this bright midday sunlight. 

  
When the Militor is finally announced, even Reeman feels a wave of relief. This long wait in the hot sun has really been overtaxing his barely recovered strength. Captives and soldiers alike straighten up and the Centor, accompanied by a lieutenant, takes two steps forward.

  
"August Militor, salute!" He raises his hand in right angle, palm-out . "Romelia prospers!"

  
"Romelia conquers, Centor," replies the Militor, an elegant, haughty man in brass-forged breastplate bearing the feats of the god Martor in relief. "Aurus Flavax, is that right? They told me you arrived yesterday with a vintum on the "Marmo". Straight from our fair Romelia into the heat and the barbarians, eh boy?"

  
The young Centor, in a voice as sharp as discipline allows, replies, "I have served for a year at Eumenis, noble Militor, and two more as Decator at Tyrene, in the East."

  
"Is that so. An admirable record." The Militor's voice betrays no hint of admiration. "Still, you shall find things rather different from the luxuriousness you were surely used to in the East, here in the burning shithole of the world." He chuckles as the cheeks of the young man fill with blood at that. "Peace, peace now, Centor. You shall see what I mean shortly, and then you will judge if I was right to speak like that. But now, I see you have not arrived empty-handed." His gaze trails to captives, and he strolls unhurriedly to where they're still standing, drenched in sweat and trying to shield themselves with their arms against the sun. "You have lost no time, young Flavax."

  
"We sunk a Kadassan galley," explains the Centor, giving a short account of the chase and the ship's capture in curt, precise phrases. When he finishes, the Militor's companions, a grey-haired officer with stern, hardened features, and a slim well-dressed man with a bookish look, both seem impressed, but the Militor allows himself only a condescending smile as he gestures that he has heard enough.

  
"All very well, all very well, Centor, but I regret to say these slaves look rather deplorable. I don't think we have need of such specimens here. You'd do better to try selling them to markets. I'm sure you and your soldiers would appreciate the coin, little though it might be."

  
At that, all free men in the courtyard freeze. Even the guards, standing unmoving at the gates, exchange looks, and the men training stop sparring to listen. The insult is a grave one. The Centor is not blushing anymore; his face has turned pale as a sheet, and the little vein in his temple is drumming the beat of his barely contained rage. His lips are bitten so thin they are now barely a line in his face, and his hands are trembling with the effort not to curl into fists.

  
"Sir," ventures the grey-haired man accompanying the Militor, "if I may, we could certainly use another cook in the kitchens, and maybe some washmen for the barracks. Should I ask them if anyone knows the work..."

  
"Do you presume to know the needs of the Militorium better than me, Graton?" The Militor's voice is so cold, the heat seems to dissipate a little. Graton bows his head, murmuring, "Of course not, Militor, do pardon my insolence."

  
"If I may, august Militor," the other man, the slight man of letters, chirps in, "if you would be so kind as to magnanimously make us a gift of your lawful share of the slaves, my noble lord the Agetor would be forever in your debt. As I may already have mentioned, he is months now on the lookout for suitable specimens for the celebrations of Diva Romelia. A few men for the sands would certainly add to the festivities he is planning. He wishes them to be even grander and more splendid than those of last year. The spirit of our glorious city must be honored twice as magnificently in these distant parts, among the uncivilized barbarians."

  
"My poor friend Larsus Pompor!" laughs the Militor indulgently, not bothering to hide an echo of malice from his words. "It will not be hard to do better than last year, I should think. Didn't he buy those black leopards from that desert rat of a merchant, that turned out to be dyed with lead dye?"

  
"Lions, noble Militor, lions. Thank all the gods they started dying before the program of the celebrations could been announced."

  
"I'd have told him, were I there. Black lions cannot be bought with the crumbs from the treasury of Drosa Aquatis. This city the gods themselves seem to have forshaken; only the desert jinns these barbarians worship could prosper there. The lowest wharf whore in Medra Maxilia fares better than my friend the Agetor. But no matter; if I can make Larsus' honorable exile even slightly more bearable and save him a little of his winsome young wife's grouching, I will gladly humour his efforts, hopeless though they may be. I apologize I cannot direct you to the traders down at the markets; their best merchandise is already reserved for us. We, too, have to take care of our festivities, and Medra Maxilia can do with no second-rate spectacle. She is, after all, the capital of the whole of Meridia Romeliana."

  
"Your humble servant perfectly understands, noble Militor," says the slight man, voice dripping with honey too sweet to be sincere. "Larsus Pompor could certainly never have hoped to aspire even to your nobility's leavings."

  
"So, select whomever suits your fancy, my friend."

  
The slight man steps in front of the row of the captives and paces up and down many times, looking at each of them with a hawk's eye. He points to one man, short but strong, with the arms of a blacksmith, another taller, lean, with a lazy eye, who has stared the whole time at the ground, clearly hoping not to be picked, and has to be held upright by a soldier once he hears himself chosen, and the woman with the powdered breasts. And as he turns to thank the Militor again, the Centor speaks, pointing his chin at Reeman:

  
"If the Agetor wishes for men for the sand, one could choose no better than this one."

  
The Militor snickers. "Him? Surely you jest, young Flavax. This rodent could be knocked down by a gust of desert wind. I'm surprised you even took the pains to bring him here alive."

  
The slight man however is standing before Reeman, contemplating him with a serious look on his face. The Centor takes half a step and says so slowly that only the other man hears, "Look into his eyes."

  
The man looks. Reeman stares back. The man's eyes remind him of nothing so much as a mouse's eyes, wet and harmless-looking, with an easy friendliness that masks the craftiness that lies beneath, which you only notice when your ration of bread or hidden portion of hard cheese has mysteriously disappeared a little after you spared the creature's life.

  
"Yes...interesting, very interesting," murmurs the man. "Yes, I think he will do too. Thank you noble Militor, and you too, young Centor." He pauses, contemplating the young man like he's trying to cling to a fleeting memory. Then his face lights up. "Flavax! Why yes, I knew your father, back in Romelia. Now I see it, you take a lot after him. A brave man, you father, a good man."

  
"A good man who died a traitor's death." The Militor's voice is soft as the blow is savage. The Centor's eyes darken, yet his shoulders sag, and though he keeps his head high, he lowers his gaze to the pavement. Reeman knows this resignation born from helplessness, and he feels a twinge of sympathy for the young man. Not pity; it's rather foolish when one is powerless, to pity the one who holds power over him. But he has felt his shoulders sag with a similar weight too many times not to feel a kind of kinship.

  
"That is enough, now, Centor. You did well, for your first time here. You may return to your ship. Until tomorrow evening, you will be notified as to your living arrangements, and the Comes Classicus will send summons to inform you about your duties and the men you will be assigned. His accountants will take care of the sale of the rest of those slaves and will inform your men's wages, though I wouldn't expect great things. That is all. You may leave."

  
"But Militor," dares the Centor, "the Agetor in also entitled to his selection of the slaves. Should I not wait until I have presented him with them?"

  
"The Agetor," speaks the Militor slowly and severely, "is away in Medra Minilia entertaining guests. He is not expected back before next week. Should I repeat myself one more time or have I been understood, Centor?"

  
The Centor nods curtly. "Perfectly understood, august Militor."

  
The Militor turns on his heel and leaves, his long maroon cape swishing, bleeding color in the off-white sunlight of the courtyard. Graton nods his head at the Centor and follows him. 

  
The Centor barks an order to his soldiers. They round up the slaves that were not chosen and swiftly march them away. The man who chose Reeman and the others instructs one of the Militorium's guards to put them in one of the cells for the night, and then he is off too. It seems that next morning they will be marching off before sunrise. 

  
To Drosa Aquatis, thinks Reeman. To the sands. His hand tingles, with the feeling that, come what may, it will not stay empty for long. 

  
The men in the yard have resumed their training. A drowsy silence has fallen over the now empty court. The harsh white sun and the pale stone make the atmosphere oppressive, deepen the silence till it seems nearly ominous. The trickle of a fountain is almost drowned under the white heat.

  
As he is marched away, Reeman turns back. The Centor has remained standing in the middle of the molten emptiness. Slowly, tiredly, he removes his helmet, rubs the bridge of his nose, wipes his forehead with palm. His hair, golden curls reaching just below his ears, flow free, shine under the sun like beaten gold.

  
"Aurus Flavax," Reeman calls.

  
The Centor stops dead. He looks at him uncomprehendingly, as the sheer audacity of a slave calling him unbidden, by his given name no less, sinks in. His eyes narrow to blades of grey-blue steel and his whole body tenses up, strung like a bow ready to shoot. His curls sway lazily as his hand lands instinctively on the hilt of the sword by his side.

  
I would like to fight you, thinks Reeman, letting for the first time in what feels like forever a small smile bloom on his face, catch on the broken edge of a tooth. If I get out of these chains you put on me when you saved my skin, then with steel or naked hands, upon the bridge of your ship or on a bed paid by the hour, I would like to fight you one day, Centor. 

  
"I will remember," he says only, before the guard herding them brings the flat of his sword down on his shoulders and he is all but dragged along with the others into the Militorium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- vintum = a 20-men corps  
> \- house of Knido = brothel


End file.
